BFL13 wrote:
"the nes-350-15's only put out 23 amps. my Peak Perf... 40amper would hold strong at 40 amps at 14.8v for at least an hour and a half... and that was starting with the batts at 14.6 volts. i'm not sure if the charger was junk and reading wrong, or if i need at least 40 amps for abs??? the pm drops from about 43 to 33 during the first 15 minute boost mode when starting at 14.6v battery state. that's all i have to go on at this point. "
Some confusion here (mine anyway! :) )
You can't tell the "starting state" of a battery by its voltage unless it has been resting a while. What were the batts doing before you started charging that they were already at 14.6v? Must have been getting charged up somehow already.
If you want to charge at 5% of 430 = 21 amps call it 20, you could do it with two 10ampers at once on all four or split the bank and do a pair each at 10a. As long as each 10amper has the power to do 10a at 16v
i was charging every other day, usually. so let's say i charged sunday evening. depending on how late it was, and after shutting down the gennie, i may use the laptop and speakers for an hour or two, and the water pump occasionally, as well as some minimal lighting. monday morning i would use minimal lighting, the 300w coffee maker for about 5 minutes, and the water pump. monday evening i would use the laptop and speakers for 3-6 hours, as well as minimal lighting and the water pump. tuesday morning the same as monday morning. the fridge controls work continuously. i would try to only use the pump for showering when the gennie was running, but sometimes not, and occasionally i would use the fan setting on the a/c for a short while, just to move the hot air from the ceiling and out the windows. then i would charge tuesday evening from about 4 'til 8pm.
monday morning the batts were usually around 12.70 to 12.74 ?
tueday morning they would be around 12.62? before starting my morning routine.
then the batteries were only being drawn down by the fridge controls at 0.9a throughout the day tuesday.
i would fire up the peak about 4pm and it would quickly rise in voltage and would run at 14.6 - 14.8v and 40 amps for about an hour. then the amps would start to taper off.
now here's something i haven't mentioned... every time the amps got down to near 30 amps, the charger would start going ballistic, and the amps would jump up and down quickly between about 26 and 34 amps! i first noticed it because the eco-throttle on the eu2000i would cause the gennie to rev up and down. so i would drop the charger down to the 20amp setting and it would run fine at 14.6v (if i remember correctly) for another hour and a half or so.
then i would drop it down to the 10amp setting to get the volts back down. (which makes sense now that you've explained it to me! lol). and then later i would drop it to the 4amp setting and the volts would start at 14.3 and drop as low as 13.6 if time permitted, but usually to 13.9-14.0v. this would all take about 3.5 to 4.5 hours.
my lighting consists of 15w flourescents, a 7w night light, and a cool usb powered flex light i plug into the putr when necessary.
the pump is a low flow, low draw 40 pounder.
the rest of the week affected at what times i charged a bit, but for the most part, my actual charging routine varied little.
all along i thought i was going through at least twice as much power as i should have been; according to my pre-calculations of my usage. originally i figured i would only have to charge every 4 days, at most, but was surprised when i found myself charging every other day for 4 hours or so. so, i finally installed the trimetric and pm 75amper, to see what the heck was going on. all usage is exactly where it should be and no leaches. so, i don't know if i was over-charging, under-charging, or what? all i do know is my batts were being boiled dry! luckily they don't seem any worse for wear... but time will tell, i'm sure.
so that's it... a day in the life of the jrnymn. thanks for listening! :)
dB~{>>>
